How One Superman Got Fit: Henry Cavill

 Although there's a new Superman film coming out in 2025 with a different actor (David Cornswet), Actor Henry Cavill is one of our favorite actors for a variety of reasons. :)  Henry said that the most difficult part of making the movie "The Man of Steel" (2013) was definitely his two shirtless scenes. He had been training for months prior to filming, but for his shirtless scenes, he had to get somewhat dehydrated to allow the muscles to better show.  Fortunately, he also refused to shave his chest, because Superman has a hairy chest in the comics. Today's blog is about his process in prepping for the film (which is one of my favorites). -  

(Henry Cavill as Superman. Credit: Warner Bros.)

Cavill went on an extremely difficult diet and training regimen in which his calorie intake was cut from five thousand to nearly fifteen hundred for six weeks. After six weeks, he reached a body fat level of just seven percent, the level achieved by professional body-builders during competitions. Henry said he did this because he wanted to make his abs as pronounced and his muscles as defined as humanly possible, to create the best possible Superman physique.

(Photo: Henry Cavill as Clark Kent/Superman in "Man of Steel." Credit: Warner Bros.) 

Actors often claim that dieting to get shredded is the hardest part of building the Hollywood physique. Cavill talked about dehydration to make his musculature more prominent. “On the first day, you'll have a liter and a half, the second day half a liter, and then on the third day, no water and you'll shoot on the fourth,” explained Cavill. Cavill revealed that gradually dehydrating the body is worse than a strict diet. The other guests asked if the actor drank water during the dehydration period. However, the Mission Impossible: Fallout star clarified, “It’s not, ‘no water for three days.'”

Cavill returned to a more manageable routine after the scenes were shot, but felt his effort was rewarded when audiences and critics alike praised his physique for the true embodiment of what Superman would look like. After he had shot his shirtless scenes, director Zack Snyder gave him a tub of ice cream and pizza to reward him for his Herculean effort for the shirtless scenes. 

Snyder said that he really wanted to include a shirtless scene of Cavill in the film, because throughout the film, you see him in a form-fitting body suit where he appears extremely muscular. He said the audience would think it was all rubber muscles, but it was important to show them it was indeed Cavill's body in that suit, and that it was all real.

Cavill naturally has a hairy chest, and left it untouched for the shoot of this movie. He insisted that Superman has chest hair in this film; he rejected the notion that just because you are muscular, you should not have chest hair, and cited the Superman comic book "The Death Of Superman" as being an iconic representation in which Superman had a hairy chest. (IMDb)  

(Superman.Credit: DC Comics)